Closet Case (Robert Rodi Essentials) (16 page)

Peg Deming, the rotund and florid wife of Julius Deming, swept into the ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and, leading her husband by a good fifteen paces, found their table. Lionel and Tracy had the misfortune to arrive at exactly the same moment.

“Oh! Lionel, it’s you. Peg Deming, remember?” She dropped her purse into the nearest chair and turned her cheek to him.

“Course I remember you, Peg,” he said, dutifully kissing her. “How are you? I’m sure you know Tracy.”

“Silly, how could I not?” She clutched Tracy’s shoulders and air-kissed her. “Good to see you dear.” Then she turned to the table and, making her way around its perimeter, snapped up each place card from its corresponding plate.

Julius Deming finally reached the table, his face scarlet and his breathing labored. “Peg, I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

“You should’ve
seen
the way they had us situated,” she said, resetting the place cards in an entirely different order. “Husbands and wives all next to each other. I’m glad I insisted we arrive early enough to fix it. Say hello to your employees, darling.”

“Hey, Lionel. Hey, Tracy,” he said, barely nodding. He turned back to his wife and said, “Maybe some of the husbands and wives
want
to sit next to each other. And what about these two here? Christ, it’s their first date!”

Peg stood erect and pursed her lips at her husband. “Honestly, Julie, I don’t know why I even bother. No one appreciates it, least of all you. As for these two,” and here she nodded in Lionel and Tracy’s direction, “from everything you’ve told me, they’ve been circling in on each other for years. They can stand to wait one more dinner service.” She collected her purse. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to powder my nose.” She looked at Tracy and said, “While I’m gone, honey, maybe you could have a go at the centerpiece. It’s too symmetrical, don’t you think? Wildflowers should look
wild
.” And then she bustled away.

When she was out of earshot, her husband shrugged and said, “Sorry, kids. She’s been on far too many cruise ships.”

At that moment Hackett Perlman and his wife Becca arrived, Perlman rubbing his hands gleefully, as if anxious to get his grip on the gold Trippy plaque. They exchanged hellos with the rest of the group, and Lionel could see that Becca was already excited about the possibilities for scorn and derision that the evening would offer. She was a woman Lionel deeply and devoutly feared. She might’ve been handsome, had her face not pinched itself into an aspect of unconditional disapproval, had her eyes not receded behind slits and her jaw not thrust defiantly outward. Lionel remembered thinking her attractive on their first meeting, at a previous awards banquet, during which he had been seated next to her at the table. But then she’d spent the entire four hours spewing vilifications and indemnifications into his ear, with no lessening of passion when she switched from discussing personal acquaintances to entire ethnic groups. It was only after the evening had ended and she had smiled and shaken his hand warmly and thanked him for being such an enjoyable dinner partner, that he realized she’d been having the time of her life. Becca Perlman’s hobby was hatred, and like the folkloric countess who kept herself young by bathing in the blood of virgins, she drew a rejuvenating pleasure from verbally skewering entire populations.

“Do you know Perlman’s wife?” Lionel whispered to Tracy.

“Believe it or not, we’ve never met,” Tracy whispered back. “Is she nice?”

“No,” was all he had time to say before the couple was upon them. Perlman was already sipping a Manhattan, which increased his air of casual malignancy. He looked at Lionel as though preparing to spit on him, and said, “You’re not drinking, Lionel,” in the precise cadences he would’ve employed to say, You don’t sleep with women, Lionel.

“Haven’t made it to the bar yet,” he replied. “Get you something, Trace?”

“Sloe gin fizz, thanks,” she said with a pretty smile.

“You’ll probably have to explain to Gunga Din how to make it,” said Becca of the dark-skinned bartender, her lips curling into a sneer. “Swear to God he just got off the boat. Asked him for a daiquiri, he looked at me like I was speaking pig Latin. I tried to get through to him but it was like talking to a houseplant. Ended up settling for white wine. Goddamn
nerve
of the caterer, giving us a Muslim for a bartender. Those people don’t even drink, for God’s sake.” She tossed back a gulp of wine and smiled, deliriously happy with the evening already.

Lionel weakly returned her smile, then slunk away to the bar. One the way there, he ran into Peg, who was on her way back. She craned her neck over the thickening crowd and said, “Honey, your girlfriend hasn’t touched the flowers!”

“Sorry, Peg, I wouldn’t let her. Her dress would fall off if she reached out that far.” He leaned in closer. “No straps,” he whispered. “And no bra.”

She shook her head in disgust and said, “Why a woman would wear a dress that doesn’t let her
do
anything is beyond me. You’re headed for the bar? ... Fetch me a martooni, would you? I’ve got to see to those flowers before the Magellans get here.”

In Becca Perlman’s defense, Lionel had to admit that the bartender
was
rather obtuse; but eventually he succeeded in navigating him through the recipe, and, his arms cradling his own drink, Tracy’s, and Peg’s, he turned back just in time to be almost broadsided by the Babcock Magellans, who swept past him like the they owned the place; and who knew, maybe they did. He followed them silently.

Peg, who was kneeling on the table trying to figure out what to do with one last sprig of goldenrod, nearly toppled off at the sight of her husband’s powerful client. Lionel scooted around the side of the table and set down the drinks, then helped the heavyset Peg maneuver herself to the floor again. Flushed and embarrassed, she took up her martini and murmured to Lionel, “No one appreciates it, I don’t suppose anyone will even look twice. I don’t know why I bother, I honestly don’t.” Then she tossed back half the drink in one throw, and went to greet the Magellans.

Lionel gave Tracy her drink and she gave him a big, beautiful grin, and he felt something in his loins twinge; he didn’t know what it was, but he convinced himself it must be sexual desire. Thrilled, he put his hand on her waist and led her over to the others.

Dolores Magellan was already drunk; but of course she was an alcoholic, so what else would you expect? No one could remember a time when she wasn’t at least sloppy, and usually she was a three sheets to the wind, going on four. But Babcock Magellan was a million-dollar client, so everyone had grown accustomed to suddenly having to tie a shoelace or falling prey to a coughing fit every time blowsy, wavering Dolores accidentally dumped a full vodka and tonic down her cleavage, or told someone who got in her way to “Eat my pussy, peon, my husband could buy and sell you!” Tracy had worked at the agency too long not to know these stories, but even so, Lionel caught her staring too fixedly at Dolores, whose blond wig tonight was perched on her head at approximately a twelve-degree angle from where it should’ve been. Lionel nudged her, and when her eyes met his, he frowned and shook his head. She averted her eyes and giggled, and took refuge in a sip of her drink.

For several minutes, Magellan prattled on about how proud he was of his agency and how excited he was about winning the award, and at every syllable that might somehow be construed as wit, everyone (save his wife) laughed aloud and slapped their thighs and then added, “Seriously, Babcock, you make it all possible,” and other such expressions of their honest, genuine feelings. Then the Magellans headed for the hors d’oeuvres table, and the rest of the group followed.

Tracy grabbed Lionel’s arm. “Let’s not go with them,” she said. “I’ve got an idea.” Her eyes twinkled.

“What? I’m hungry!” he protested, but she just laughed and pulled him back to the table. There, before his horrified eyes, she picked up their place cards and rearranged the seating so that they’d be together.

“Are you out of your
mind
?” he stage-whispered. “Peg will go
nuclear
when she sees this.”

“No, she won’t,” she said, amused by his fear. “Not in front of Magellan. She wouldn’t dare.”

“Oh God, oh God,” he said, suddenly panicking. He picked up a napkin and wiped his forehead with it before he could realize it wasn’t even his. “Oh, Christ. Get me a fresh napkin. Oh, God! We’re gonna get fired!”

She poked him in the stomach. “You’re such a
wimp
, Lionel. No one’s getting fired for something as petty as this.” And just as these words were beginning to reassure him, she added, “And so what if we do?”

He moaned and put his hands to his face, and she laughed gaily. “Come on, let’s sit down so Peg can’t change everything back.”

Lionel felt faint, but did as he was told. And sure enough, Peg was the first to arrive back at the table, her little plate heaped with cauliflower and broccoli and other foods which, she was always assuring anyone who would listen, did a bang-up job of cleansing the colon. She smiled maternally at Lionel and Tracy, till she realized they were seated next to one another. She froze; her smile faded, and she stared at them with nothing less than stupefied disbelief, as if no one in the world had ever crossed her in so fiendishly blatant a manner as this. Lionel felt her glare as though it were the beam from a laser cannon.

Just when she had recovered enough to open her mouth and berate them, the Magellans arrived back at the table, with Perlman and Deming dancing attendance like medieval fools, except that Magellan was the one making the jokes and they the ones laughing wildly. Magellan carried a plate filled with tiny London broil sandwiches, and Dolores had filled hers with about thirty black olives which, when she had careened back into her chair and steadied herself against its armrest, she proceeded to consume, one by one, with no expression of pleasure whatsoever.

Magellan glanced at Peg, who still stood in open shock, and said, “I can’t sit till you do.” It probably didn’t help Julius Deming’s marriage that, from behind his powerful client, he flapped his hands at his wife and mouthed,
Sit down, goddammit!

Peg made her way around the table, saying with artificial sweetness, “I was
planning
on taking my seat, Babcock, dear, but
someone
seems to have moved the place cards and now I really don’t even know where I’m suppo— Ah,
here
I am.”

Impishly, Tracy had put Peg’s card right next to Lionel’s. And as Peg lowered herself into her seat, Lionel could feel a cold front rise up between them that no conversation would be able to cross. Suddenly he realized Tracy had planned this so that she’d have him all to herself.

And then he began to relax. The worst had happened; Peg was mortally offended, and there was nothing he could do about it. But strangely, the anticipation of the offense had been worse than the reality of it; and he surprised himself by now finding the whole thing increasingly funny. He turned and looked at Tracy, whose eyes were alive with girlish merriment, and he actually felt his penis stiffen for a moment. The sensation elated him. He could do it! What did Peg Deming matter if he could become Tracy’s hot monkey lover?

Becca Perlman, needing only scorn to feed her, had chosen no more than a few token cheese wedges for her plate, and was now ignoring them. Instead, she feasted on the rich repast of the Leo Burnett table. “Did you see how they sit right up front, by the podium?” she sneered. “Think they’re God’s gift. Three years ago when Hacky won for that Foto-Finisher’s campaign, I snuck up to take a snapshot with my Polaroid, and oh my
God
I made the unfor
giv
able mistake of resting my purse against some Leo Burnett snob’s chair. Thought he was gonna take my
head
off. I see him here this year, too. Looks like he gained weight, the big swine. Some people are just too goddamned self-important for their own good. Probably a junior copywriter, what do you want to bet? Well, what goes around, comes around, that’s what I say. I pointed him out to Hacky and said, He ever comes to you for a job, you know what to say.” She nodded twice, then leaned back in her chair and happily patted her stomach, as though she’d just consumed a whole joint of beef.

Beneath the table, Tracy kicked Lionel’s ankle, as if to say, Can you believe this? And Lionel, who had for years been completely obsequious in the presence of his employers and their wives, now allowed himself to snicker at their expense — not only this once, but often over the course of the half-hour that followed. It was Tracy’s presence — joyful, anarchic, wild — that liberated him; Tracy who lifted him so high; Tracy who — could it be? — aroused him. As yet, his erection was an unremarkable one, like a stick of butter after a few minutes in the fridge … still soft, but with the beginnings of solidity. By the time the night was over, who knew what its state might be?

Lionel allowed his imagination to drift for a moment into a rosy, television-commercial heterosexual future. He and Tracy, rolling around in a field of leaves in autumn; he and Tracy, making snow angels in winter; he and Tracy, twining magnolia blossoms through each other’s hair in spring; he and Tracy, applying sunscreen to each other’s bronzed backs while stretched out on a single jumbo beach towel in summer. A future of picture-postcard moments, of breeder bliss … it was all before him now. The wheels were in motion. Tracy was right: so what if he was fired? He’d found something more important — something he’d thought forever denied him.

When Perlman interrupted his reverie by groaning, “Oh, no. Oh, no,” he didn’t at first realize that the creative director, who sounded as always like a Greek chorus heralding disaster, could in fact be doing just that. After all, what disaster could befall him here? And whatever it was that was upsetting Perlman, how could it have anything to with Lionel?

But when Perlman explained himself by muttering, “It’s Jennifer Jerrold, and she’s headed this way,” Lionel felt his stomach drop, and he knew that doom was indeed at hand. And sure enough, when he turned to see the forbidding Ms. Jerrold make her approach, he discovered that she was accompanied by her handsome young husband, Kyle.